tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-81871084293200435072024-03-14T11:07:18.513-04:00The Tumbleweed FarmAnonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04519885025963711017noreply@blogger.comBlogger126125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8187108429320043507.post-85327320677901308482018-06-13T00:04:00.001-04:002018-06-13T00:04:39.407-04:00Weimer Lake drains into a sinkhole<span style="background-color: white; color: #111111; font-family: Roboto, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">Weimer Lake, in Wapehani Park (Bloomington, IN) has a sinkhole on its southern side, which sometimes opens and sometimes closes. This year, the sinkhole is side of a large car, and the lake water drains through it pretty fast.</span><br /><br />
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This sinkhole has been mostly open for the last 2-3 years. The City of Bloomington's plan for dealing with the problem? Demolish the dam and drain the lake!Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04519885025963711017noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8187108429320043507.post-56892898114268490972018-05-14T02:37:00.001-04:002018-05-14T02:38:41.985-04:00Indiana beaversMy first, accidental, attempt at a wildlife video.
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Seen on a forest pond (an old abandoned quarry) in southern Indiana, about half an hour before sunset.Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04519885025963711017noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8187108429320043507.post-46114306323713868942017-12-15T00:47:00.000-05:002018-01-22T21:16:00.165-05:00Tajik on Google Maps!<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
I <a href="http://vmenkov.blogspot.com/2015/06/google-maps-sprachbund.html">wrote a while back</a> about Google Maps occasionally labelling objects (not located in Kyrgyzstan) in Kyrgyz. I have not seen Kyrgyz on maps for a long time... but today I saw a label... in Tajik! The Wuhan International Airport was shown to me, for unknown reasons, as Фурудгоҳи байналмилалии вуҳон! Perhaps something is going on that I am not aware of...
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg2Ig8UVHb1QIJfsTXuDJhYgTUu8NvcXwxwMJiKtWCZEXu05QrUh3lbULJPrKp5aTQCVih3LNHM-DdhWSH7wPHZmbEVG1oLbmi-H_zUebUL44tEJtYBpeY6zrH9LGyIYdnTH22bFnnL1R4/s1600/google-maps-wuhan-tianhe-tajik.png" imageanchor="1" ><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg2Ig8UVHb1QIJfsTXuDJhYgTUu8NvcXwxwMJiKtWCZEXu05QrUh3lbULJPrKp5aTQCVih3LNHM-DdhWSH7wPHZmbEVG1oLbmi-H_zUebUL44tEJtYBpeY6zrH9LGyIYdnTH22bFnnL1R4/s400/google-maps-wuhan-tianhe-tajik.png" width="640" data-original-width="1280" data-original-height="1024" /></a>
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P.S. P.S. More, now in a mixed (Cyrillic + Arabic) alphabet
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgsuhy9vO-IjKWj3irfj42qAH9X1nI9M-t3lDVucSKR1RddhimeC26i6QRYj5_h9juA2DOMGNFkfUhW84fcFeR4WZ8csz8hU7vR64fjXdkTDo-Pm4PtSt5NJaKqv3tbm0QfyFOvh9S1_No/s1600/zhuhai-small.png" imageanchor="1" ><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgsuhy9vO-IjKWj3irfj42qAH9X1nI9M-t3lDVucSKR1RddhimeC26i6QRYj5_h9juA2DOMGNFkfUhW84fcFeR4WZ8csz8hU7vR64fjXdkTDo-Pm4PtSt5NJaKqv3tbm0QfyFOvh9S1_No/s1600/zhuhai-small.png" data-original-width="640" data-original-height="512" /></a>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04519885025963711017noreply@blogger.com0Wuhan Tianhe International Airport (WUH), Huangpi Qu, Wuhan Shi, Hubei Sheng, China30.7766171 114.2124495000000530.7220421 114.13176850000005 30.8311921 114.29313050000005tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8187108429320043507.post-29104065629019636472017-11-26T22:50:00.000-05:002017-11-26T22:50:09.692-05:00What Bing.com thinks about Malenkov<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjTed0T51zbSF_28CBbOd4vH7BUAfwfFDjm-z2wLMRvrZ2-V5mCVBh4WEVVrEWB5_B_MYW9yAPdk8xCPdei9vfpSRBy55YSg4xWGjNr2FwxmvcxmWollYb4D5u2oLN9my8Dx45bVVov_Pg/s1600/bing-malenkov.png" imageanchor="1" ><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjTed0T51zbSF_28CBbOd4vH7BUAfwfFDjm-z2wLMRvrZ2-V5mCVBh4WEVVrEWB5_B_MYW9yAPdk8xCPdei9vfpSRBy55YSg4xWGjNr2FwxmvcxmWollYb4D5u2oLN9my8Dx45bVVov_Pg/s1600/bing-malenkov.png" data-original-width="800" data-original-height="500" /></a>
"These images contain adult content". Uh?
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04519885025963711017noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8187108429320043507.post-43045588186634905892016-03-27T01:39:00.002-04:002016-03-27T02:02:18.710-04:00St Peter and the poor man<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<p>
Here's another Macedonian folk tale. It was recorded by Marko Cepenkov in Prilep, and published in <a href="http://promacedonia.com/sbnu/sbnu_07.pdf">SBNU Vol. VII</a> (Sofia, 1892). The original text, in the 19th-century Bulgarian orthography, is on pp. 172-174 of Section III of that volume. The same story was also published, in modern Macedonian orthography, in the collection Mark K. Cepenkov, <em>Makedonski Narodni Umotvorbi</em>, Volume 4 (Skopje, 1972). In that edition it appears as entry No. 176, pp. 108-113. A text very similar to the 1972 edition (with minor changes in spelling) is available online as well: <a href="http://www.pelister.org/folklore/folktales/folktale.php?file=0046">СВЕТИ ПЕТАР И СИРОМАВИОТ</a>
<p>It is interesting that this text was recorded nearly a century before the scientists started talking about the global warming, or several decades before some Macedonians moved to Australia and got to meet the cane toads (who themselves only were brought to that continent in the 20th century)!
<hr>
<h2>St Peter and the poor man (Свети Петар и сиромаиот)</h2>
<p>There was a poor man: naked, barefoot, hungry, thirsty, at the end of his rope. He was walking home from work one evening -- and it was a cold and rainy day, with fields and roads turned into mud, and he was trembling like a leaf on a tree. As his luck would have it, he met Saint Peter, who was also walking home.
<p>
"Good evening, Saint Peter," -- said the poor man to him -- "how are you doing, what are you up to?"
<p>
"May the Lord grant you everything good, o Christian! I am fine, thanks to God. And how are you?"
<p>
"We are fine, thanks to God, o St Peter," -- said the poor man -- "living in health. But being poor is tough; look for yourself: I am naked, barefoot, in mood up to my knees. I still will be all wet when I go to bed, and I will be wet when I get up."
<p>
"There is the Lord, o Christian," -- said St Peter to him - "The Lord is here for you the poor people too".
<p>
"Eh, may there be Lord for us the poor people too!", said the poor man to him. "We pray to you from the earth to the heaven, St Peter, that you go to the Lord and pray to him that at least the entire year the weather were warm, like in the summer, so that we the poor people could work in the field and earn bread for the children whom Lord has given to us. We the poor don't ask the Lord to make us rich; we only ask for the weather to be warm; that's all we want. Oh St Peter, wouldn't you go to God and pray to Him that he makes the entire year warm, so that there would be no more cold?"
<p>The poor man was crying as he was saying these words and St Peter, he was kissing both his hands imploringly. St Peter felt pity upon him; he and went right away to the top of a high mountain, fell to his knees and prayed to God to grant the poor man's wish: so that there would be summer year round, and there would be no winter. He prayed and prayed for three days, and finally the Lord responded:
<p>"O Peter, why are you pestering me so much? To ordain the weather change? Yes, St Peter, I can make the summer all year round. But it will be even worse for you. Think well, so that you won't need to come and ask me again to change the weather so that it again would be as it is now! This is why I am telling you: think one more time, or instead of making it better for the poor you only will make it worse for them!"
<p>"Truly, o Lord, it is as you are saying" -- said St Peter to him -- "But I want you to make this good thing that I have promised to the poor man to ask you for, so that the poor man would not say that you aren't listening to me and talking with me."
<P>"Well, Peter, you are pestering me so much! Here, I will listen to you and do it the way you wish; but if something bad comes out of the change in climate, it is you and your household who will suffer the most from it. Now, go in peace; I have ordained for the weather to turn into summer, fine and beautiful."
<p>What a miracle! The weather started changing right away; it had been frosty, and now it became pleasantly warm.
<p>The weather became warmer every day, and soon it was summer all the time. When the poor saw that winter turned into summer, they rejoiced and took their hats off to pray to the Lord for the health of St Peter, because it was him whoss prayer had reached God to turn winter into summer.
<P>St Peter, too, enjoyed it very much when he heard the poor pray to God for him.
<p>For a few years after that, it was summer year round, and the poor enjoyed life said to themselves:
<P>"Now, that's weather! That's prosperity! That's how it should have been done when the World was created, so that the poor would not suffer as they had until now!"
<p>Along with the poor, the rich rejoiced as well, because the fields, the meadows, the vineyards all produced more. But this wonderful warm weather benefited not only the people, but also all the creatures of the earth: all were fruitful and multiplied, and none died: snakes, vipers, lizards, frogs, crawfish, wolves, bears, foxes, and other animals. And in addition to that, flies, wasps, and mosquitoes multiplied abundantly. Everyone had to hold a horse tail in his hand to shoo away these bugs, while at night people could not sleep because of bedbugs. Neither people nor livestock could stand the bugs.
<p>
And on top of this, the land became filled with frogs and toads; there was no empty spot without a frog or toad in it. It was as if the ground was all paved with stones, that's how many frogs and toads there were. Yes, that's how it was! "One who wants to gain horns, he will end up losing even his ears", as said the ancients.
<p>The frogs and toads kept growing, becoming as big as large geese. And their ruler, the King of Toads, has grown to be as big as a house. His eyes were as big as lids of big pots; everyone who saw the King of Toads was full of fear, and would say to himself:
<p>"Oh brother, what was that monster!?"
<p>People cringed, and started to kill frogs and toads, as if they hoped to clear their yards from them. But as soon as you started fighting them and have killed some, lots of other frogs would come to the calls of those being killed, and would start a great ruckus, the choir of their voices rising to heaven, scaring anyone out of his wits. The people found themselves in trouble, and saw no end to it.
<p>"Hey folks", it was often said, "let's go to St Peter to ask him to go to God and to pray him to rid us of these creatures that don't let us live and work.:
<P>Many times did people go to St Peter with such requests, but St Peter felt ashamed to go to God to ask for this. And on top of this, here's what happened to St Peter.
<p>One morning St Peter's daughter went out with a shovel, to clear the yard of the family's house from frogs and toads. At this time the King of Toads happened to be walking by the door of St Peter's house, and he saw St Peter's daughter who was chucking out spadefuls of frogs and toads.
<p>"Why are you throwing out frogs and toads with a spade like this?" -- the King of Toads asked her.
<p>"If I weren't throwing them out, there would be no space left for me! They have filled our yard like sheep!"
<p>"Eh, you are going to see with whom you are arguing!", said the King of Toads to the daughter of St Peter, and went away.
<p>The evening of the same day, the King of Toads sent matchmakers to St Peter to ask the hand of his daughter. When St Peter and his wife heard the matchmakers' words, their hair stood on end from fear and shame.
<P>"Look, brothers, can the King of Toads ask someone else to be his bride? Me and my wife only have one daughter; can he ask for a bride from some family that has several daughters?" -- said St Peter. -- "Please carry my respects to the King of Toads; we are praying from the earth to the heaven that he may change his mind!"
<p>"Look, brothers, I too entreat the King of Toads not to take away my daughter as his bride", -- told St Peter's wife -- "It will scare her so much! She's been doted upon by her parents, fed on chosen morsels, how can she become the bride of a toad? Here are some gifts from us to the King Toad. Go in peace, brothers, and take our best wishes to the King of Toads!"
<p>The matchmakers took the bag with gifts and went to the King of Toads, and told him all that St Peter and his wife had said to them.
<p>"St Peter and his wife aren't going to deceive me with some gifts! I will take their daughter as my bride, or I will die!", told the King of Toads to the matchmakers.
<p>The King of Toads went to make wedding arrangements right away, sending his envoys in all directions to invite wedding guests. Snakes, vipers, lizards, frogs and toads, and other creatures were all invited. They all assembled at the King of Toads' place as his wedding party. The drums started beating in the King of Toads' courtyard, his guests started dancing. Great ruckus started at the King of Toads' house. And the King of Toads sent a message to St Peter to make his daughter ready, as he was about to come there with his wedding party to take her.
<p>When the message from the King of Toads reached St Peter, he started to cry and grabbed at his beard, as if trying to pull it out, while his wife was tearing her hair out. St Peter went to the mountain right away, to pray to God. He fell on his knees, and screamed as loudly as he could,
<p>"O Lord, help me and rid me of the Toad, so that he does not take my daughter!"
<p>"Eh, so you see, Peter, that this weather is worse than what it was like before I've made summer year round!"
<p>"It's my fault, o Lord, forgive me!" -- told him St Peter -- "I have caused this, not you".
<p>"Ay, go in peace, Peter, and don't worry." -- said the Lord. -- "I will save your daughter."
<p>When St Peter approached his house, what did he see? Thousands and millions of frogs and toads, snakes and vipers had surrounded his house. The King of Toads had taken his daughter and put her into his cart, pulled by two oxen, with snakes and vipers used instead of harness, and they started rolling on their way to King of Toads' house. But, in the middle of a warm day, suddenly a strong wind started blowing from the north, freezing the soil down to nine hands deep. A terrible storm started, freezing all creatures to death; wherever they were standing, at those spots now they all fell dead! The last of all creatures to die was The King of Toads.
<p>As everything froze, becoming hard as stone, the weather improved, in accordance with God's will, and St Peter's daughter came back home. Her parents joy had no bounds.
<p>"It's better this way now," -- said the people -- "Even though it's cold, at least now we have a break from all the creatures that made us suffer!"
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<em>Notes:</em>
<p>[1] The original text of the tale describes the amphibian pests as <em>žabi</em> (жаби), or <em>žabi i žabari</em> (жаби и жабари), i.e. female and male <em>žabi</em>. Strictly speaking, <em>žaba</em> is usually translated as "frog" in Macedonian; however, the word is generic, and also includes species that are known as "toads" in English. (E.g. Крастави жаби are known in English as "true toads"). So I felt "frogs and toads" is a suitable translation.
<br /></div>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04519885025963711017noreply@blogger.com0Prilep, Macedonia (FYROM)41.3440827 21.552792241.296398700000005 21.4721112 41.3917667 21.633473199999997tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8187108429320043507.post-29907880900451904472016-03-23T21:56:00.000-04:002016-03-23T21:57:29.493-04:00Turtles from Macedonia<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
Some photos from July 2014. Tortoises (I think <em>Testudo hermanni</em>, Hermann's Tortoise) near Crnovec, Macedonia.
<a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Crnovec_-_tortoise_-_P1100469.JPG" imageanchor="1" ><img border="0" src="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/7/7b/Crnovec_-_tortoise_-_P1100469.JPG/800px-Crnovec_-_tortoise_-_P1100469.JPG" /></a>
<a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Crnovec_-_tortoise_-_P1100436.JPG" imageanchor="1" ><img border="0" src="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/f/fa/Crnovec_-_tortoise_-_P1100436.JPG/800px-Crnovec_-_tortoise_-_P1100436.JPG" /></a>
(Images are clickable)
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04519885025963711017noreply@blogger.com0Crnovec, Municipality of Bitola, Macedonia41.202506394377117 21.17849610722657941.178610894377115 21.138155607226579 41.226401894377119 21.218836607226578tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8187108429320043507.post-91155135080077897412016-02-25T00:54:00.001-05:002016-02-25T00:58:14.465-05:00The Giant Rice Turtles<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
I've been to Quanzhou twice, but never knew that they have this
<a href="https://www.google.com/search?q=平安米龟&safe=off&biw=1280&bih=933&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ">interesting</a>
<a href="http://image.baidu.com/search/index?tn=baiduimage&ps=1&ct=201326592&lm=-1&cl=2&nc=1&ie=utf-8&word=%E4%B9%9E%E9%BE%9F">custom</a>. Supposedly, these "good luck rice turtles" (平安米龟)
are constructed for the ''Yuanxiao'' festival (元宵), which is celebrated 2 weeks after the Chinese New Year, or (usually) about 2 weeks before the Orthodox Christian Fat Tuesday (<em>Maslenitsa</em>).
<br /></div>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04519885025963711017noreply@blogger.com0Quanzhou, Fujian, China24.874132 118.6756760000000723.034656 116.09388900000006 26.713608 121.25746300000007tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8187108429320043507.post-80807114825832266212015-12-02T21:20:00.001-05:002015-12-02T21:23:29.417-05:00Quanzhou crabsThese crabs live under the ancient Luoyang Bridge in Quanzhou, Fujian.<br /><br />
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<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="270" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/fy4kWWPTJSE?t=57s" width="480"></iframe>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04519885025963711017noreply@blogger.com0Luojiang Bridge, Quanzhou, Fujian, China24.952442883681204 118.6815124868164724.938046383681204 118.66134248681648 24.966839383681204 118.70168248681647tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8187108429320043507.post-10601983562237641502015-11-18T12:18:00.000-05:002015-11-18T12:18:13.146-05:00<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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Turtles basking on a raft in a pond at a Buddhist term in Fuzhou. The pond is designated as a <em>fang sheng chi</em> 放生池, i.e. "pond for releasing living creatures".
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Little fish to crawl out of the mud for a breath of air (or maybe to hunt other fish). Dianxia Town, Fuding City, Fujian.
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04519885025963711017noreply@blogger.com0Dianxiazhen, Fuding, Ningde, Fujian, China, 35520827.156346 120.3259570000000226.252342 119.03506350000002 28.06035 121.61685050000001tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8187108429320043507.post-12750329172437544122015-09-09T21:52:00.000-04:002015-09-10T11:41:26.637-04:00Direct flights Australia to Wuhan<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
Australia's Jetstar (a Qantas subsidiary) is to start direct service from the Gold Coast airport (south of Brisbane) to Wuhan <a href="http://australianaviation.com.au/2015/09/jetstars-wuhan-service-set-for-takeoff/">on Sep 29, 2015</a>
<p>And I was wondering about <a href="http://vmenkov.blogspot.com/2011/05/bus-to-sydney-anyone.html">those posters</a> in Wuhan buses four years ago...
<p>Wuhan's Tianhe airport already has direct service to a few international destinations, including Seoul (INC) and Paris. A commuter rail connection from the airport to Wuhan's 3 main railway stations is supposed to open by the end of this year.
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04519885025963711017noreply@blogger.com0Tianhe Airport, Huangpi, Wuhan, Hubei, China30.770434 114.2105340000000530.7687285 114.20801250000005 30.7721395 114.21305550000005tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8187108429320043507.post-90400580891148691112015-07-08T21:47:00.001-04:002015-07-08T21:47:52.981-04:00The Freat Soviet Eccyclopedia<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
More wonders of OCR:
<pre>
Bibliographic information
Title: Freat Soviet Eccyclopedia
Published: 1980
</pre>
<a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=vnOFYI3g-N4C">
https://books.google.com/books?id=vnOFYI3g-N4C</a>
<br /></div>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04519885025963711017noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8187108429320043507.post-61603424478896876332015-06-13T00:54:00.000-04:002015-06-26T16:33:45.851-04:00Google Maps Sprachbund<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi0PdyIMX-5cCV6kcR2ueyJLgGQzKVVnJrMRCEL3XD8ptbpdsuK4gj8pAgdlMmk4dEeTqxY2vXWDkuRqiNMHUbcKy7OCmBDvZLnFdPGMBgQPjfxwV8TQRhxsLvl9vfSzo6e8e8UknA-gz8/s1600/gmaps-macedonian-kyrgyz.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi0PdyIMX-5cCV6kcR2ueyJLgGQzKVVnJrMRCEL3XD8ptbpdsuK4gj8pAgdlMmk4dEeTqxY2vXWDkuRqiNMHUbcKy7OCmBDvZLnFdPGMBgQPjfxwV8TQRhxsLvl9vfSzo6e8e8UknA-gz8/s1600/gmaps-macedonian-kyrgyz.png" /></a></div><div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<p>A while back, as an experiment, I set my interface language for Google products to Macedonian. In reality, only a small portion of all the Google label, legend, and message texts may be available in that language, so I also had to pick a "backup" languages, for which I choose Bulgarian (I think by default, as it is the closest related language).
<p>So you would imagine that the text I would see e.g. in Google Maps would be a mix of Macedonian and Bulgarian, plus the original language of the region being mapped? Wrong! There are actually <strong>four</strong> languages I often see. And the fourth is... Kyrgyz!
<p>In the example above, the standard Google Maps messages are in Macedonian (e.g. "Пребарувајте во близина", i.e. "Search in the vicinity"), the country name is also in Macedonian ("Соединети Американски Држави" = the USA), while the object name is a translation/transcription of the "West Side Avenue Light Rail Station" into a curious mix of languages:
<ul>
<li>"Запад" must be the Bulgarian or Macedonian translation for "West" (the proper adjective form would actually be "Западна", but we cannot expect that!);
<li>"Сайд Авеню Лайт Рейл" is the Bulgarian transcription for "Side West Light Rail". (We know that it's Bulgarian and not Macedonian because of the letters й and ю; Macedonian would use ј and ју (or just и), respectively. In principle it could be Russian too);
<li>and finally "станциясы" is the Kyrgyz for "the station". (The word would be spelled the same in Kazakh, but for many other place labels I saw words that were definitely Kyrgyz, e.g. "аэропорту" rather than "аэропорты" for "the aeroport"; Kyrgyz has something called "labial harmony", which Kazakh doesn't).
</ul>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04519885025963711017noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8187108429320043507.post-32749920333649362782014-10-02T00:33:00.005-04:002016-04-02T22:50:08.447-04:00A tale of creation and deadlines<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<p>This is one of the more interesting Macedonian folk tales collected by <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marko_Cepenkov">Marko Cepenkov</a>. Like many such tales, it is (very loosely) based on Biblical stories, but has a unique twist -- and may be of as much interest to project managers as to theologians...
<p>This story was recorded by <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marko_Cepenkov">Marko Cepenkov</a> in <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prilep">Prilep</a> from an informant named Ivan Motev, and published in Sofia in the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Folklore_and_Ethnography_Collection">SbNU</a>, vol. XV, pp. 91-92, in 1898. The original publication is in what appears to be a version of the 19th century Bulgarian orthography adopted for the central Macedonian dialect; the story has been since <a href="http://www.pelister.org/folklore/folktales/folktale.php?file=0055">reprinted in the modern Macedonian orthography</a> (again, adopted for the particular dialect), e.g. in <em>Predanija i Legendi</em>, ed. Kiril Penuševski, Skopje, 1969.
<blockquote>
<p><strong>When the Lord created people (Господ кога и создаваше луѓето)</strong>
<p>
When the Lord created heaven and earth, with everything that's on them and in them, everything that we can or cannot see, living and dead; and when the Lord -- praise be to Him! -- saw that everything that He had made was made well, He also decided to create people on this earth, so that they would live and glorify Him. When creating everything in the world, the Lord scheduled one day to work on something, another day to work on something else, the third day for the third thing, the fourth day... and so on. He had just one day scheduled for creating people. He got up early in the morning, rolled up His sleeves, took a mattock in His hands, dug up some soil, prepared clay, and started making people, like a potter who makes pots. First He'd make the legs, then the trunk, then the arms, then the head, hair, ears, eyes, nose, and all other organs all put together; like a clockmaker, which puts the cogwheels of a clock together with a great skill, in this way He, too -- praise be to Him! -- put together all organs of a man with great skill, so that no part would be put incorrectly, thus resulting in a poorly made man.
<p>He had made so many people by lunchtime, got hungry -- praise be to God! -- and sat down to lunch; and after lunch He'd make more people, as many as he needed. The Lord lunched on a bagel and milk, looking at the people whom He had made and whom He had lined up in front of Him, like a battalion of soldiers. He looked at them and smiled to Himself, because it was a pleasure to look at them, so handsome and smart they had been made.
<p>"Oh, how good they are, these people whom I have made!", He said to Himself, "These people, they really are in My image! I have made so many before lunch; but if I make as many before the end of the supper time, that will be no good: I sill need ten times as many people as I have made! So I need to make a mould, and to make them with the mould; this way I will be able to make as many people as I need by supper time".
<p>He quickly finished His lunch, crossed himself, rose from His meal, washed His hands, and made a mould - great job! He prepared more clay, as much as He needed, and started making the rest of the people, as many as He needed. Put clay into the mould, press it in, and here's a man for you, just take him out of the mould! The Lord would turn a wheel and keep getting people out of the mould. And even if some came out with a lame leg, or with a crooked arm or neck, or blind, or bald, or with scabs on his skin; or if he were a bully, or a traitor, or a stubborn blockhead -- and even if the Lord saw him come out of the mould among other people -- He did not have time to correct the defect, because He was in a hurry to complete the planned number of people by supper time.
<p>But you will say, why did not the Lord allocate two days and made all people like those good ones in the first batch, instead of setting up the wheels and moulds, from which would come out bad people, and not good ones, like those which the Lord had made by hand and which had come out good? As much as I can say about it, it is that it pleased Him to do it this way; because when a king gives his word, he does not go back on it; and the Lord is not to going to say that He'd make the people in one day, and then spend two days on it. That's one thing that will not happen: the Lord won't go back on His word!
<p>And this is why there are good and bad people in the world, because the Lord made the good ones by hand, and the bad ones, with the wheel and the mould, like a potter who makes pots on a potting wheel.
</blockquote>
<p>
P.S. An audio recording of this story, read by Boris Majstorov for Radio Skopje, is available on Youtube, as the second of the two stories in <a href="http://youtu.be/_AOmrqh7Gkc?t=11m">this clip</a> (starting at around 11:00).
<iframe width="420" height="315" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/_AOmrqh7Gkc?t=11m" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>
<br /></div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04519885025963711017noreply@blogger.com0Prilep, Macedonia (FYROM)41.3440827 21.552792241.296398700000005 21.4721112 41.3917667 21.633473199999997tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8187108429320043507.post-28624476408073009002014-07-31T16:48:00.000-04:002015-09-01T15:49:20.015-04:00Macedonia to Dalmatia ride, mileage calculation<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
Here are the distance estimates for the July Macedonia, Montenegro, and Dalmatia trip, using Google Maps. Somewhat weird junction points have been chosen for use in this calculation, in order to get Google Maps to draw a route more or less similar to my real route.
<ul>
<li>Macedonian train from Skopje to Prilep
</li>
<li>Section 1, Prilep - Krushevo - Strezhevo Reservoir - Prespa Lake - Galičica NP - Ohrid - Elbasan, 279 km as follows:
<pre>
Prilep to Krushevo 33 km
Krushevo to Stenje 100 km
<a align=left href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhTNZ9ZxHc5Qvs5R39gQPpzeszpcZLw3hgIMKBepO-ESPn9ll2s9A9hwL8KjPZUzfco4HQiPK8rwkY6-Ys3Bpuy94MdgeMpxltsfgea9Z3WTgmPY7J4NUchxOiCwejkasCT04NKKXZ_qsM/s1600/P1100599.JPG" imageanchor="1" ><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhTNZ9ZxHc5Qvs5R39gQPpzeszpcZLw3hgIMKBepO-ESPn9ll2s9A9hwL8KjPZUzfco4HQiPK8rwkY6-Ys3Bpuy94MdgeMpxltsfgea9Z3WTgmPY7J4NUchxOiCwejkasCT04NKKXZ_qsM/s320/P1100599.JPG"
alt="In Galičica National Park, above Lake Prespa and the village of Stenje"
/></a>
Stenje to Trpejca 33 km (across Galičica National Park)
Trpejca to Ohrid 21 km
Ohrid to Elbasan 92 km
</pre>
</li>
<li>Albanian train from Elbasan to Shkoder
<li>Section 2, Shkoder - mouth of the Bojana River - Old Bar - Šušanj, 102 km, as follows
<pre>
Shkoder to Bojana 55 km
Bojana to Šušanj 47 km
</pre>
<li>Montenegrin train from Šušanj to Podgorica
<li>Podgorica - Cetinje - Kotor - Risan - Herceg Novi - Dubrovnik - Split, 381 km as follows:
<pre>
Podgorica to Cetinje 37 km
Cetinje to Kotor 45 km
Kotor to Herceg Novi 43 km
Herceg Novi to Dubrovnik 49 km
Dubrovnik to Makarska 145 km
Makarska to Split 62 km
</pre>
</ul>
<p>This totals to the 762 km riding distance for the entire trip, which is a bit shorter than the last year's summer ride, Copenhagen to Amsterdam. But the elevation gain / loss were rather higher this time :-)
<p>
Actually, the first section was a bit shorter than the Google Maps would show, as I could not make it show the route along the Strezhevo Reservoir (there is no official mapped road there). But riding via Bitola, as Google Maps would of course suggest, would have been easier...
<p>It took about 20 days from leaving Prilep to arriving to Split, including all stops.
<br /></div>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04519885025963711017noreply@blogger.com0Split, Croatia43.5081323 16.44019349999996443.4160113 16.278831999999962 43.6002533 16.601554999999966tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8187108429320043507.post-79351371561488963992014-07-01T22:27:00.000-04:002014-07-01T22:27:35.745-04:00Teaching an Ubuntu laptop to recognize the Ethernet connection<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
Good <a href="http://askubuntu.com/questions/71159/network-manager-says-device-not-managed">advice</a> from <strong>
Joseph VanPelt</strong>
<blockquote>
<p>
<strong>wired device not managed</strong>
<p>
I had the same problem with a fresh install on my Asus Eee PC 1005HA. The live environment worked with no problems, but once installed I couldn't get the connection to respond or to not read "device not managed". When I changed the text in this configuration file and restarted Network Manager everything worked!
<pre>
gksudo gedit /etc/NetworkManager/NetworkManager.conf
</pre>
for lubuntu:
<pre>
gksudo leafpad /etc/NetworkManager/NetworkManager.conf
</pre>
<p>
Now the text editor will open. Find the line <tt>managed=false</tt> and replace <tt>false</tt> with <tt>true</tt> and save the file (ctrl+s) and close the file.
<p>
Restart your computer or the NetworkManager service (<tt>sudo service network-manager restart</tt>).
</blockquote>
This worked for me with Ubuntu 12.04 on an Acer laptop as well.
<br /></div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04519885025963711017noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8187108429320043507.post-2035257924194210102014-06-03T00:40:00.002-04:002014-06-03T01:10:16.807-04:00Sandinistas and Sandanistas<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<table>
<tr>
<td>
<a href="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/f9/Augusto_C%C3%A9sar_Sandino_cph.3b19320.jpg" imageanchor="1" ><img border="0" height=600 src="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/f9/Augusto_C%C3%A9sar_Sandino_cph.3b19320.jpg" /></a>
<td>
<a href="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/0e/Sandanski_v_bg_armia.jpg" imageanchor="1" ><img border="0" height=600 src="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/0e/Sandanski_v_bg_armia.jpg" /></a>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>
<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Augusto_C%C3%A9sar_Sandino">Augusto César Sandino</a> (1895–1934)
<td>
<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jane_Sandanski">Jane Ivanov Sandanski</a> (1872–1915)
</table>
<p>Reading the <a href="http://www.mn.mk/makedonski-legendi/8769-Hristo-Zarezankov">biography</a> of a certain historical character (Hristo Zarezankov / Христо Зарезанков) at a Macedonian web site, I was a bit intrigued by his being introduced as a "Macedonian revolutionary, <strong>Sandinista</strong>, and anarcho-socialist" (македонски револуционер, <strong>сандинист</strong> и анархосоцијалист). Considering the character's years of life (1890–1938), political inclinations, and, overall, his quite eventful life, one could certainly imagine Mr. Zarezankov sailing to Central America and joining the fighters of Augusto César Sandino - or maybe trying to follow the General's anti-imperialist ideas in the Balkans.
<p>It turns out, however, that, in Macedonian at least, <strong>сандинист</strong> (Sandinist[a]) is not an uncommon typo for <strong><a href="https://www.google.com/search?q=санданистите">санданист</a></strong> (Sandanist[a]).
(In English, of course, people are prone to misspell <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/1983/03/06/world/sandanists-are-indignant-at-pope-dissidents-delighted-at-his-politics.html">the other way around</a>).
<p>
Like the Sandinistas, the <a href="https://mk.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D0%A1%D0%B0%D0%BD%D0%B4%D0%B0%D0%BD%D0%B8%D0%B7%D0%B0%D0%BC">Sandanists</a>, too, were named after an assassinated charismatic leader, Jane Sandanski, fighting against the oppression by a great power (in his case, the Ottomans). I won't try to summarize here the complexities and controversies of his politics, but the career of the <em>Pirinskiot Tsar</em> ("The Czar of the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pirin">Pirin</a>") is a good illustration of the concept of "Balkanization". After Macedonia was liberated from the Turks in 1912 and divided by the liberator countries (who had to go to war between each other to accomplish the said division) in 1913, Sandanski was assassinated -- supposedly, with a tacit (covert) approval of the Bulgarian Czar Ferdinand, who then sent a wreath to his funeral.
<br>
</div>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04519885025963711017noreply@blogger.com0Sandanski, Bulgaria41.5678434 23.28035380000005741.5203164 23.199672800000059 41.6153704 23.361034800000056tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8187108429320043507.post-22174970199185252782014-05-31T17:05:00.000-04:002015-09-09T21:56:01.945-04:00Hedgehog Eats Ploughwoman's Lunch<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<p>
In an <a href="http://vmenkov.blogspot.com/2014/05/another-lobsters-wedding.html">earlier post</a>, we saw rather complicated relationships between hedgehogs and turtles (sometimes mediated by their crustacean mutual friends), as depicted in a few Bulgarian/Macedonian and Greek folk songs. The topic, however, is far from exhausted.
<!--
SbNU I, No. 1236, p. 137 ; Ξινό Νερό -->
<p>The following song, published in 1896 in <a href="http://www.promacedonia.org/sbnu/sbnu_index.htm#13">Volume XIII</a>, <a href="http://books.google.com/books?id=8eVBAAAAYAAJ&pg=RA2-PA38">page 38</a>, of the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D0%A1%D0%B1%D0%9D%D0%A3">SbNU</a> (the <em>Folklore Collection</em>), was collected in the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samokov">Samokov</a> area of western Bulgaria by D. Ikimov.
</p>
<p>
<a href="http://books.google.com/books?id=8eVBAAAAYAAJ&pg=RA2-PA38&ci=184%2C917%2C734%2C458&source=bookclip"><img src="http://books.google.com/books?id=8eVBAAAAYAAJ&pg=RA2-PA38&img=1&zoom=3&hl=en&sig=ACfU3U0H0lvlTl4129Vtf6fOqaZcib4aiQ&ci=184%2C917%2C734%2C458&edge=0"/></a>
</p>
<p>
<a href="http://books.google.com/books?id=8eVBAAAAYAAJ&pg=RA2-PA39&ci=83%2C70%2C768%2C334&source=bookclip"><img src="http://books.google.com/books?id=8eVBAAAAYAAJ&pg=RA2-PA39&img=1&zoom=3&hl=en&sig=ACfU3U3oEmAvzeCng9TzoEPshZ8W7an6mQ&ci=83%2C70%2C768%2C334&edge=0"/></a>
</p>
<p>The subtitle “Хороводная” under the song's title means, basically, that you can dance to it.
<p>
<table>
<tr>
<th>
Желва и ежъ
<th>
Turtle and Hedgehog
</tr>
<tr>
<td>
<pre>
Пошла желькьа на оранье,
На оранье, на копанье;
Упрегнала два гушчера,
Остен ѝ е льута змиiа.
Понела е башчи (?) ручoк:
Пугачица и чорбица,
Чурбицата од мушица.
На срешча ѝ ежо-кьежо,
Ежо-кьежо-тараежо,
Наежил се, накежил се,
Пресресна си суа желькьа,
Пригѫрна ia, цальива ia,
Цальива ia, уапа ia;
Изруча ѝ погачица,
Погачица и чорбица.
Разльути се суа желькьа,
Та си оiде на кадиа,
На кадиу говореше:
-- Е кадио, ефендио!
Iа сам дошла да се судим,
Да се судим с ежо-кьежо.
Iа си поiдох на оранье,
На оранье, на копанье,
Та понесох башчу (?) ручок:
Погачица и чорбица.
На срешча ми ежо-кьежо,
Ежо-кьежо-тараежо,
Наежил се, накьежил се,
Пригѫрна ме, цальива ме,
Цальива ме, уапа ме;
Изеде ми погачица,
Искуса ми чорбицата.
А кадия говореше:
-- Таком Бога, суа желько,
Ти си мома -- дома седи,
Оно -- момче, така чини.
Разсѫрди се суа желькьа,
На кадиу говореше:
-- Е кадио, ефендио!
Криво седи, право суди,
Iали стани, iа да судим.
</pre>
<td>
<pre>
A turtle went to do ploughing,
To do ploughing, to do digging;
She harnessed two lizards,
And used a venomous snake for a <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goad">goad</a>.
She's brought a lunch for her father (?):
Pita bread and a <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chorba"><em>chorba</em></a> stew,
A chorba stew made from flies.
She's run across a hedgehog,
Hedgehog-shmedgehog!
He's bristled at her,
And blocked the prim (?) turtle's path.
He hugged her, kissed her,
Kissed her, bit her,
Ate her pita bread,
Her pita bread and <em>chorba</em> stew.
The prim turtle was angry,
She went to the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qadi">qadi</a>,
And said to the qadi:
-- "Oh Qadi <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Effendi">Effendi</a>!
I have come to sue,
To sue the hedgehog.
I went to do ploughing,
To do ploughing, to do digging,
I brought a lunch for my father (?):
Pita bread and chorba stew.
I met a hedgehog,
Hedgehog-shmedgehog,
He bristled at me,
Hugged me, kissed me,
Kissed me, bit me;
He ate my pita bread,
And devoured my chorba stew".
And the qadi said:
"The Lord be with you, prim turtle!
You are a girl - stay home;
He's a boy, he'll be doing things like that."
The prim turtle was angry,
She said to the qadi:
"Oh Qadi Effendi!
If you aren't sitting straight, at least judge right,
Or get up, and I will judge!"
</pre>
</tr>
</table>
<p>(In accordance with the usual convention of referring to material published in the SbNU, the location of this song is usually abbreviated to "СбНУ XIII, 38". It can also be found, with a somewhat modernized spelling, as <a href="http://liternet.bg/folklor/sbornici/kniga/329.htm">Song No. 39</a> in the book "КНИГА НА НАРОДНАТА ЛИРИКА, От седенките и хората до семейните радости и неволи", eds. Божан Ангелов и Христо Вакарелски).
<p>Notes:
<ul>
<li>"суа" may be a dialectal variant of "суха" ("dry"), or at least some editions think so; for the lack of a better guess, I translate that as "prim".
<li>A <em>qadi</em> was a judge in an Ottoman (Islamic) court, and <em>Effendi</em> (Sir) was a way to address learned officials like that. At the time the song was recorded, Bulgaria has been liberated from the Ottoman rule for less than 20 years (and Macedonia was still under the Ottomans), so no wonder the folk songs still had Ottoman era terms in them.
<li>The Turtle in the song is pretty good at declining her nouns: "кадио, ефендио!" is the Vocative (which is still very much alive and well in Bulgarian and Macedonian), and "кадиу" has to be the Dative (which is on its way out).
<li>"Криво седи, право суди" (literally, something like "sit not straight; judge right") is actually a Bulgarian (and Macedonian) proverb, which is still in active use (at least judging by the online media). It is listed in plenty of dictionaries as an <em>examlpe</em>, but none of them quite explains its meaning, which appears to be along the lines, "You ought to make a right judgment in a disinterested way, not affected by your personal position". I am sure at all that I am guessing its sense right (or the meaning of the Turtle's "extension" of it). The most usual Bulgarian form of this prover is "Криво да седим, право да съдим," but there are many variants.
</ul>
<p>
<!--
<p>
----
another version
http://books.google.com/books?id=hnxGAAAAMAAJ&q=%D0%9A%D0%B8%D0%BD%D0%B8%D1%81%D0%B0%D0%BB%D0%B0+%D0%BC%D0%BE%D0%BC%D0%B0+%D0%B6%D0%B5%D0%BB%D0%BA%D0%B0
-->
<p>A <a href="http://www.itarpejo.org/churches/songs-from-mariovo/551-kinsalamomazelka">different version of this song</a>
is given in the book "ЦУТ ЦУТИЛА ЧЕРЕШВИЦА. МАКЕДОНСКИ НАРОДНИ ПЕСНИ ОД МАРИОВО" (<em>Macedonian folk songs from <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mariovo">Mariovo</a></em>) by БОЖО СТЕФАНОВСКИ (Božo Stefanovski), published by Bigoss in Skopje, 1995.
<p>
<table>
<tr>
<th>
Кинисала мома желка
<th>
The Girl Turtle goes out
<tr>
<td>
<pre>
Кинисала мома желка
во сабота на работа,
при орачо, при копачо.
Ми кренала зелен зелник,
зелен зелник коприварник.
На пат срете лоша среќа,
лоша среќа момче еже,
што потскокна па ја бакна,
што подрипна и ја штипна.
Ми тргнала на судија,
на судија, при кадија:
-Слушај ваму ти судија,
ти судија, ти кадија,
криво седи, право суди,
си кинисав на работа,
на работа во сабота,
при орачо при копачо,
што ме срете момче еже,
што потскокна та ме бакна,
што подрипна та ме штипна!
-Ај од тука, мома желко,
така прават ергените!
</pre>
</td>
<td>
<pre>
A girl turtle
Went to work on Saturday,
To do ploughing and digging.
She brought a green pie,
A green nettle pie.
On her way, she had an unfortunate meeting:
She met a boy hedgehog,
Who jumped and kissed her,
Who lept and pinched her.
She went to a judge,
To a <em>qadi</em> judge:
"Listen, Your Honor,
You Qadi Judge!
You may not sit straight, but judge right!
I went to work,
Went to work on Saturday,
To do ploughing and digging,
Where I met a boy hedgehog,
Who jumped and kissed me,
Who lept and pinched me."
"Go away, girl turtle!
This is what boys do!"
</pre>
</td>
</tr>
</table>
<p>
A somewhat different (bowdlerized?) version of the same song <a href="
http://libertas.mk/%D1%84%D0%BE%D1%82%D0%BE-%D0%B4%D0%B8%D1%81%D0%BA%D1%80%D0%B8%D0%BC%D0%B8%D0%BD%D0%B0%D1%86%D0%B8%D1%98%D0%B0%D1%82%D0%B0-%D0%B8-%D0%BC%D0%B8%D0%B7%D0%BE%D0%B3%D0%B8%D0%BD%D0%B8%D1%98%D0%B0%D1%82/">recently appeared in a 5th grade Macedonian language textbook</a>:
<table>
<tr>
<th>
Кинисала мома желка
<th>
The Girl Turtle goes out
<tr>
<td>
<pre>
Кинисала мома желка
да ми оди на орање
да ми оди на орање
да ми носи сладок ручек.
Ја пресретна еже момче
тој ја бутна, ја подбутна
и истури сладок ручек
сладок ручек топеница.
Се налути желка мома
ми отиде кај судија.
Ој судијо, ти кадија
криво седи, право суди.
Јас си одев на орање
и си носев сладок ручек,
ме пресретна еже момче
тој ме бутна, ме побутна,
ми истури сладок ручек
топеница, маштеница.
Што и вели судијата,
што и вели кадијата:
Тој е момче се задева,
ти си мома, седи дома.
</pre>
<td>
<pre>
A girl turtle went out,
To go to do ploughing,
To go to do ploughing,
Carrying a tasty lunch with her.
A boy hedgehog blocked her way,
Pushed her,
And grabbed the tasty lunch,
Tasty lunch of <em>Topenitsa</em>.
The girl turtle was angry
And went to the judge.
"Oh <em>Qadi</em> Judge,
Whether you are sitting straight or not, make a right judgment!
I was walking to do ploughing,
Carrying a tasty lunch with me;
A boy hedghog blocked my way,
He pushed me,
And took my tasty lunch,
Of <em>Topenitsa</em> and yogurt."
What did the judge tell her,
What did the <em>qadi</em> tell her?
"He's a boy, he'll tease people.
You're a girl, stay home."
</pre>
</tr>
</table>
<p>
Notes:
<ul>
<li>The name <em>topenitsa</em> (топеница) appears to be applied to various dishes in different places. The Macedonian Wikipedia <a href="https://mk.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D0%A2%D0%BE%D0%BF%D0%B5%D0%BD%D0%B8%D1%86%D0%B0">explains</a> that it's a flour product, a bit like pita chips; but Bulgarian <a href="http://www.receptite.com/%D1%80%D0%B5%D1%86%D0%B5%D0%BF%D1%82%D0%B0/%D1%82%D0%BE%D0%BF%D0%B5%D0%BD%D0%B8%D1%86%D0%B0-%D1%81-%D0%BA%D0%B8%D1%81%D0%B5%D0%BB%D0%BE-%D0%BC%D0%BB%D1%8F%D0%BA%D0%BE">recipes for topenitsa</a> describe some kind of a yogurt, cottage cheese and hot pepper spread.
</ul>
<a href="http://bukvar.mk/news/ograben-stan-vo-chair-ukradeni-okolu-73000-evra?newsid=8IO_" imageanchor="1" ><img border="0" src="http://libertas.mk/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/moma-zelka.jpg" /></a>
<p>As <a href="http://bukvar.mk/news/ograben-stan-vo-chair-ukradeni-okolu-73000-evra?newsid=8IO_" imageanchor="1" >reported by a Macedonian blogger</a>, this folk song recently appeared in a 5th grade Macedonian language textbook. Besides "philological" questions (about the meaning of certain rare words) students were asked whether they think the judge's decision was right, and how <em>they</em> would try the case. This all (together with some other texts in the same book) made the blogger suspicious of sexist ("misogynist") inclinations of the textbook authors. I guess the Samokov version of the song, which ends with the Turtle's
retort to the Judge's "Boys will be boys" pronouncement would have been less objectionable to that modern readers' sensibilities.
<iframe width="420" height="315" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/nC6yKAtfMDk" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>
<p>P.S. Here's <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nC6yKAtfMDk">an audio recording</a> of one version of this song performed by the duet of Jonče Hristovski and Trpe Čerepovski (Јонче Христовски, Трпе Череповски) on Youtube.
<br /></div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04519885025963711017noreply@blogger.com0Samokov, Bulgaria42.3369976 23.55279749999999742.2900431 23.4721165 42.383952099999995 23.633478499999995tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8187108429320043507.post-73727442789558628982014-05-17T14:13:00.000-04:002014-05-17T14:13:54.608-04:00Tell the world about our swamp<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<p>Inspired by <a href="http://vmenkov.blogspot.com/2014/05/another-lobsters-wedding.html">reading some folk poetry</a>, I was doing a web search researching the distribution of two words for "turtle", <em>želka</em> (желка) and <em>kostenurka</em> (костенурка) in Macedonian and Bulgarian. (The former word is the old Common Slavic - related to Greek χελώνα, and English ''chelonian'' too - and is the standard Macedonian word, present also in Bulgarian dialects; the latter is the modern standard Bulgarian, and I was curious to find out if it ever appears in Macedonian too).
<p>So Google search found <a href="http://www.bushlandperth.org.au/mk/member-groups/6-statewide-regional/70-friends-of-the-western-swamp-tortoise">this page</a> for me, which was supposed to be the Macedonian version of a page about the <a href="http://www.bushlandperth.org.au/member-groups/6-statewide-regional/70-friends-of-the-western-swamp-tortoise">Friends of the Western Swamp Tortoise</a>, a conservation group in Perth, Western Australia. The fact of the existence of such a page was curious enough (there are some Macedonian speakers in Australia, and one could imagine one of them working on the Urban Bushland Council of Western Australia and wanting to translate a web page) - but looking at the actual text of the page made it clear no one actually speaking Macedonian would write something like that. The title, for example, was translated as "Пријатели на Западна мочуриштето Костенурка на", which just isn't a phrase with any sensible grammar in it; a normal was to translate the name of the group would, I assume, be something like "Пријатели на западна блатна желка". The rest of the page was not much better.
<p>It did not take much time to realize that this was machine translation - and, incidentally, exactly the translation that Google Translate would provide for the English page in question. It turned out the Urban Bushland Council went very much full-bore with their translation enterprise: they translated their entire website into 50+ languages, from Afrikaans to Yiddish! The quality of the translation, needless to say, varied. While it's easy to make fun of the quality of the automatic translation (besides the grammar and syntax problems, and occasionally failures to translate some words at all, the translation engine obviously was not aware that "Swan" is a proper name (Swan River)), the fact is that most translated pages - at least into half a dozen major languages I've taken a look at - were more or less (say, 80%) comprehensible.
<p>I am still curious about the motivation beyond the organization's decision to provide these "translations", as opposed to, say, simply putting a "translate" button to every page, which would take the user to some kind of Google Translate plug-in... I suppose they made it easier for people to find their site when searching the web in foreign languages, but to which extent would that even be a concern for an organization with a regional scope in a region that's 90%+ English-speaking?
<br /></div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04519885025963711017noreply@blogger.com0Perth WA, Australia-31.9530044 115.85746930000005-33.6770629 113.27568230000004 -30.2289459 118.43925630000005tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8187108429320043507.post-27211328233808778262014-05-12T19:11:00.000-04:002015-09-09T21:56:32.364-04:00Another "Lobsters' Wedding"<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<p>
Today we continue with the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bulgarian_Folk_Songs"><em>Bulgarian Folk Songs</em></a> (which, as we know, are mostly Macedonian, in today's terms). <a href="http://vmenkov.blogspot.com/2014/05/lobsters-wedding.html">Song 27,</a> "Lobsters' Wedding" (where, in fact, it is a pair of tortoises who are marrying), recorded by the Miladinov Brothers in the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Struga">Struga</a> area, is followed by song No. 28, labeled <em>Ednakvo</em> ("the same"). So presumably its title for No. 28 is also "Свадба от ракоите" ("Lobsters' Wedding"), and it is also from Struga. The events in it, however, are quite different:
<p>
<table>
<tr><th>
<a href="http://www.promacedonia.org/bugarash/bnpesni/bm_drugi_stari.htm#28">
Свадба отъ ракови-те</a>
</th><th>
<a href="http://loza.mk/2012/07/%D0%B5%D0%B4%D0%BD%D0%B0%D0%BA%D0%B2%D0%B0/">
Свадба от ракоите
</a></th>
<th>Lobsters' Wedding</th>
</tr>
<tr><td><pre>
Рако’и-те свадба чинѣтъ,
А желки-те панагюрвѣтъ,
Ежо’и-те сеиръ чинѣтъ.
Ми сѣ спущи едно еже,
Ми целива една желка.
Ѣ догледа желюрок-отъ,
Тà сѣ спущи по еже-то:
„море еже пущарѫце,
Чіа жена си целивалъ.”
Рак-отъ му сѣ отго’орвитъ:
„Море еже пущарѫце!
Міе на бракъ те канифме,
Да ми ядишъ, да ми піешъ,
Големъ аинкъ да ми чинишъ,
Не да бацишъ чужа жена!”
Кутро еже с’ отго’орвитъ:
„Море раче осмокраче,
Море дѫлгомустакинче,
Море люто кавгадживче,
Ко ке ядишъ, ко ке піешъ,
Лели ке сѣ опіанишъ,
Тà ’се ке си забора’ишъ
Коӗ ѥ свое, коӗ ѥ чужо.”
</pre>
</td>
<td><Pre>
Ракоите свадба чинет,
А желките панаѓурвет,
Ежоите сеир чинет,
Ми се спушти едно еже,
Ми целива една желка.
Је дoгледа жељурокот,
Та се спушти по ежето
„Море еже пуштар’це,
Чиа жена си целивал.”
Ракот му се одгоо’рвит:
„Море еже пуштар’це!
Мие на брак те канифме,
Да ми јадиш, да ми пиеш,
Голем аинк да ми чиниш,
Не да бациш чужа жена!”
Кутро еже с’ отгоорвит:
„Море раче асмокраче,
Море д’гомустакинче,
Море љуто кавгаџивче,
Ко ке јадиш, ко ке пиеш,
Лели ке се опианиш,
Та се ке си забораиш
Кое је свое, кое је чужо.”
</pre>
</td>
<td>
<pre>
Lobsters are celebrating a wedding,
Tortoises are feasting,
And hedgehogs are partying.
Here one hedgehog
Comes and kisses a [she-]tortoise.
The He-Tortoises sees it
And turns to the hedgehog:
"Mr. Hedgehog - Letting your hands wander?
Whose wife are you kissing!?"
And the Lobster tells him:
"Mr. Hedgehog - Letting your hands wander?
We've invited you to the wedding,
To eat and drink with us,
To have a party with us,
And not to kiss others' wives!"
The poor Hedgehog is responding:
"My dear old Eight-Legged Lobster,
Dear my Lobster Long-Antenna'ed,
You are such a crabby fellow!
As one is feasting and drinking,
It is so easy to get drunk
And to forget altogether
What is yours and what is not!"
</pre>
</td>
</tr>
</table>
<p>The first column is from the 1861 edition, the second is from the 1864 Macedonian edition (with the spelling modeled on the modern Macedonian orthography, the third is my attempt at a translation).
<p>Another version of the song is Song No. 1236 in <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kuzman_Shapkarev">Kuzman Shapkarev's</a> <a href="http://books.google.com/books?id=1f4NAQAAIAAJ&pg=PA137
">1891 collection</a>, where it is listed among the "funny wedding songs" (смешни свадбени песни):
<a href="http://books.google.com/books?id=1f4NAQAAIAAJ&lpg=PA137&ots=jCxGeVW_4y&dq=%D0%B4%D0%BE%D0%BD%D0%B5%D1%81%D0%B5%20%D0%BC%D0%B8%20%D0%B4%D0%B2%D0%B0%20%D0%BC%D1%83%D0%B7%D1%83%D1%80%D0%B0&pg=PA137&ci=155%2C806%2C711%2C342&source=bookclip"><img src="http://books.google.com/books?id=1f4NAQAAIAAJ&pg=PA137&img=1&zoom=3&hl=en&sig=ACfU3U0Bt1bbKWI1ezaazA_a_SDzsc7O9w&ci=155%2C806%2C711%2C342&edge=0"/></a>
<p>Here there are no lobsters at the wedding, just hedgehogs and turtles; and the confrontation between the He-Turtle and the Hedgehog takes a deadly turn:
<p>
<table>
<tr><th>Ежовите и жельките
<th>The hedgehogs and the turtles
</tr>
<tr><td>
<pre>
Ежовите сватби чинат, тарнана!
А жельките панагюрват, ой бобо!
Еже жельче надмигвеше,
го до гледа желькарчето,
та ми ойде у кадия,
ми донесе два музура.
Се налюти еже, меже,
та извади два кубура,
ми отепа два музура.
</pre>
<td>
<pre>
The hedgehogs are celebrating a wedding - <em>Tar-na-na!</em>
And the turtles are partying, - <em>Oy-bo-bo!</em>
A hedgehog winked to a [she-]turtle;
The he-turtle noticed that,
And went to a <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qadi">qadi</a>,
[And] fetched two bailiffs.
The hedgehog became angry,
Pulled out two holsters,
And killed the two bailiffs.
</pre>
</td></tr></table>
<p>Notes:
<ul>
<li>The exclamations <em>Tar-na-na!</em> and <em>Oy-bo-bo!</em> are to be repeated after each line.
<li>A <em>qadi</em> is a judge in a Muslim (Shari'a) court, and a <em>muzur</em> музур (which I rendered as "bailiff") is, according to Guerov's dictionary, an officer of such a court.
<li>A <em>kubur</em>, two of which the hedgehog uses, is said by Guerov to be a "holster" (same as in Russian) or "quiver" (which, thinking of it, is a more appropriate piece of equipment for a hedgehog). I am not sure why the hedgehog uses a holster (or a quiver) rather than a gun or his own needles as a deadly weapon, but so the song says, if I understand it correctly.
</ul>
<p>Interestingly, the notion of a (male) hedgehog becoming interested in a (female) tortoise was not unique to Macedonian folk poetry. It also appears in a Greek folk song recorded by <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panayiotis_Aravantinos">Panayiotis Aravantinos</a> at around the same time in the Ioannina area, in Epirus, some 100 miles to the south of Struga. In Lucy Garnett's English translation it is rendered as follows:
<blockquote><em>
...<br>
And a giant of a hedgehog <br>
At a tortoise eyes was making. <br>
And the tortoise was quite shamefaced, <br>
And within her hole she hid her. <br>
...
</em>
</blockquote>
<p>(Quoted from: "Nursery Rhyme No. VI", based on Aravandinos' song No. 195, in <a href="https://archive.org/stream/greekfolksongsfr00garnuoft#page/172/mode/2up"><em>Greek folk-songs from the Turkish provinces of Greece, 'Η δουλη 'Ελλασ: Albania, Thessaly (not yet wholly free), and Macedonia: literal and metrical translations by Lucy M. J. Garnett,
classified, revised, and edited with an historical introduction on the survival of Paganism, by John S. Stuart Glennie</em>, 1885,
p. 173</a>)
<p>I know no Greek, but the original text of these four lines apparently runs as follows (I may have screwed up with the Greek diacritics):
<blockquote>
...<br>
κι' ὁ σκαντσόχοιροσ ὁ γίγασ<br>
κάνει μάτι τῆς χελώνας,<br>
κ' ἡ χελώνα καμαρόνει<br>
καὶ 'ς τὴν τρύπα της τρυπόνει.<br>
</blockquote>
on page 137 of <a href="http://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/008686022">Aravantinos' book</a>. As far as I can guess by looking at the Greek text, its meter appears to be the same as that of Lucy Garrett's English translation (as promised by the title of the latter), which seems to be the same of the Macedonian song from Struga recorded by the Miladinovs. I wonder if the Greeks in Epirus and Macedonia and the (Slavic) Macedonians in the same regions were actually singing their songs on the same tune! I wish I could attempt a metric translation like Garrett's...</p>
<p>(Incidentally, the Macedonian word for turtle, желка, which is based on the Common Slavic form, is apparently related to Greek χελώνα; at least Vasmer thinks so. It apparently is not shared (in that meaning) with other branches of the Indo-European family)
<br />
</div>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04519885025963711017noreply@blogger.com0Struga, Macedonia (FYROM)41.1778353 20.67832580000003941.1300333 20.59764480000004 41.225637299999995 20.759006800000037tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8187108429320043507.post-9134828187535531872014-05-09T00:44:00.000-04:002015-09-09T21:56:56.666-04:00Lobsters' Wedding <div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<p>
The <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bulgarian_Folk_Songs"><em>Bulgarian Folk Songs</em></a> is a volume of folk songs
(mostly Macedonian, in today's terms) collected by the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miladinov_brothers">Miladinov brothers</a> and published in Zagreb in 1861. (<A href="http://www.promacedonia.org/bugarash/bnpesni/bnp_gallery/index.html">Facsimile</a>)
There are several hundreds of songs and tales in that volume, and some of them look a bit like something from Edward Lear - or at least you imagine that Edward Lear could have drawn lovely illustrations for them.
(Incidentally, Edward Lear <em>did</em> travel across Macedonia in 1848, just a few years before Miladinovs' work there!)
<p>Here's song No. 27, recorded in the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Struga">Struga</a> area. Included are the original 1861 spelling, the modern Macedonian spelling from a 1964 edition, and my poor attempt at a translation.
</p>
<center><a href="http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Tortoises_in_Krushevska_Reka_valley_-_P1100155.JPG"><img src="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/0/0b/Tortoises_in_Krushevska_Reka_valley_-_P1100155.JPG/800px-Tortoises_in_Krushevska_Reka_valley_-_P1100155.JPG"></a><br>
Macedonian turtles / Македонски желки
</center>
<p>
<table>
<tr><th>
<a href="http://www.promacedonia.org/bugarash/bnpesni/bm_drugi_stari.htm#27">
Свадба отъ ракови-те</a>
</th><th>
<a href="http://za-makedonija.blogspot.com/2013/10/blog-post_8780.html">
Свадба от ракоите
</a></th>
<th>Wedding at the Lobsters</th>
</tr>
<tr><td><pre>
Рако’и-те свадба чинѣтъ,
А жельки-те панагюрвѣтъ.
Сѣ посвѫрши желюрок-отъ,
Си посвѫрши кутра желька,
Кутра желька за невеста.
И си стана желюрок-отъ,
Дойде ко’а, дойде време,
Да сѣ берѣтъ ’си свато’и.
Си пособра куси врапси,
Куси врапси за свато’и;
Си пособра уташина,
Уташина кумашина;
И си зеде за старосватъ
За старосватъ сколовранецъ,
Побратими бильбильчина,
Киниса’е по невеста,
Отидо’а во дворо’и.
Ми играетъ, ми скокаетъ,
Ми ядеетъ, ми піѥтъ.
И подстана желюрок-отъ,
Сѣ подскачи на скала-та,
И ѣ̀ виде кутрà желькà
Промената, наружена,
Ѣ целива бѣло гѫрло.
Сѣ зедо’а, отидо’а,
Со желка-та с’ кердоса’е.
</pre>
</td>
<td><Pre>
Ракоите свадба чинет,
А жељките панаѓурвет.
Се посврши жељурокот,
Си посврши кутра жељка,
Кутра жељка за невеста.
И си стана жељурокот,
Дојде коа, дојде време,
Да се берет си сватои.
Си пособра куси врапси,
Куси врапси за сватои;
Си пособра уташина,
Уташина кумашина;
И си зеде за старосват
За старосват сколовранец,
Побратими биљбиљчина,
Кинисае по невеста,
Отидоа во дворои.
Ми играет, ми скокает,
Ми јадеет, ми пијеет.
И подстана жељурокот,
Се подскачи на скалата,
И је виде кутра жељка
Променета, наружена,
Је целива бело грло.
Се зедоа, отидоа,
Со жељката с' кердосае.
</pre>
</td>
<td>
<pre>
The Lobsters are in charge of a wedding,
While Tortoises are celebrating.
The He-Tortoise is marrying,
He is taking a poor She-Tortoise
As his bride.
For the He-Tortoise
The time has come
To invite wedding guests
To invite small sparrows
To be his wedding guests.
An owl is invited
To be a witness;
And a starling is invited,
As the second witness;
Nightingales are his best men.
He goes to the bride's,
And enters her courtyard.
He is dancing, he is leaping,
He is eating, he is drinking.
Now the He-Tortoise rises,
And runs up the stairs,
And he sees the poor She-Tortoise,
Who's all dressed up,
And he kisses her white neck.
He takes her with him,
And they go to be married.
</pre>
</td>
</tr>
</table>
<p>Notes:
<ul>
<li> The title, <em>Svadba ot rako[v]ite</em> can be literally translated as the "Lobsters' Wedding". (Actually, <em>rak</em> refers to a great variety of crustaceans, and in Struga has to mean some kind of freshwater crayfish; in <a href="http://www.notesdumontroyal.com/mot-clef/yoto-yotov">Yoto Yotov's French translation</a>, the creatures are "crabs"). However, in this version, the crustaceans don't appear anywhere beyond line 1, and it is turtles who are marrying... so maybe lobsters are just officiating at the wedding, and "Wedding at the Lobsters'" may be a better title? (The same volume has <a href="http://vmenkov.blogspot.com/2014/05/another-lobsters-wedding.html">another song</a> with the same title, No. 28; the text, beyond the first two lines, is almost entirely different, and in that song it is not quite clear whether it is the crustaceans or the chelonians who are marrying)
<li>The Macedonian word for "turtle", <em>zhelka</em> (желка, or in the song's dialect, <em>zheljka</em> жељка) is apparently the preserved old common Slavic word with this meaning; in Russian, Bulgarian, and Serbian it has been replaced with different words, <em>cherepaha</em> (черепаха), <em>kostenurka</em> (костенурка) and <em>kornjača</em> корњача, respectively, which apparently refer to the creatures appearance (they are derived from the words for "skull" and "bones").
<li>Nouns in Slavic languages have grammatical gender, and <em>zhelka</em> ("turtle") is grammatically feminine (as are the words for "turtle" in other Slavic languages). Remarkably, Macedonian also has a word to specifically refer to a male turtle, should the speaker feel the need to: <em>zhel(j)urok</em> (<a href="http://www.makedonski.info/show/%D0%B6%D0%B5%D0%BB%D1%83%D1%80%D0%BE%D0%BA">желурок</a> / жељурок)! This of course is somewhat unusual, since for most species for which distinct words for the male and female individuals exist, the "unmarked" (generic) noun is used for the male (e.g. <em>lav</em> лав "lion", <em>volk</em> волк "wolf"), and the special marked form exists for the female of the species (e.g. <em>lavica</em> лавица "lioness", <em>volčica</em> волчица "she-wolf"); for those species where the generic noun is grammatically feminine (e.g. <em>ververica</em> верверица, "squirrel"), no derived masculine form usually exists. So the turtles, in Macedonian, are fairly exceptional in this respect.
<li>The song has a great variety of terms to refer to various participants of the wedding ceremony (сват, кумашина, старосват, побратим), and my attempt to render them into English is rather arbitrary.
</ul>
<p>
<strong>Next:</strong> <a href="http://vmenkov.blogspot.com/2014/05/another-lobsters-wedding.html">Another <em>Lobsters' Wedding</em></a>, where events are becoming more dramatic.
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04519885025963711017noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8187108429320043507.post-89529848319742128072014-05-07T19:16:00.001-04:002014-05-07T19:17:55.950-04:00NofuzI encountered an interesting word in Krste Misirkov's famous little book, <a href=http://mk.wikisource.org/wiki/%D0%97%D0%B0_%D0%BC%D0%B0%D0%BA%D0%B5%D0%B4%D0%BE%D0%BD%D1%86%D0%BA%D0%B8%D1%82%D0%B5_%D1%80%D0%B0%D0%B1%D0%BE%D1%82%D0%B8">"Za Makedonskite Rabotite"</a> (1903). One of Misirkov's main ideas at the time was that Macedonians would be better off as loyal subjects of His Imperial Majesty the [Ottoman] Sultan than in a united Macedonia (made into an autonomous province of the Ottoman Empire) than as citizens of several Christian countries that would divide Macedonia in case of a victorious anti-Turkish rebellion or war (which, of course, happened in 1912-13). Among the good things which, in his view, Turks could do to become better masters of their Macedonian subjects would be "entering the name 'Macedonian' into the <em>nofuz</em>es and other official documents of people of Slavic origin from Macedonia" (внесуаiн'е во нофузите и друзите официiални документи на лица от словенцки произлез од Македониiа името „македонец"). So apparently <em>nofuz</em> (нофуз) was some kind of identity document that Ottoman subjects had to use; but what exactly was it, and what's the origin of the word?
<p>
A Google Books search shows a few other uses of the term in the Bulgarian/Macedonian literature of the period describing the Ottoman Macedonia of the day. Vasil Kunchov explains (<a href="http://books.google.com/books?id=kmriAAAAMAAJ&pg=PA135">Macedonia</a>, 1900, page 135):
<blockquote>
At the birth of every child, a certificate called "nofuz" is issued by the government, via the ecclesiastiscal authorities. In it, the child's sex, name, birth date, birth place, and the names of the parents are recorded. The nofuz certificate is needed by every Turkish subject, because without it one cannot travel within the country or receive a passport to travel outside of it; without it, ecclesiastical authorities must not issue a marriage license. This being the case, everywhere in Turkey there are plenty of men and women without nofuz certificates.
</blockquote>
<blockquote>
... Нофузното свидетелство е нужно на всеки турски подданикъ, ...
</blockquote>
<p>
And here's a good article in English on those IDs: <a href="http://www.docblog.ottomanhistorypodcast.com/2012/08/ottoman-identity-card.html"> Ottoman Identity Card</a>, by Chris Gratien, with a few photographs of what those documents looked like. It turns out that in Turkish they were called <em>nüfus tezkeresi</em>, where <em>nüfus</em> by itself means, apparently, "population". It seems that in the Slavic language of the day the colloquial name for the document became shortened simply to <em>nofuz</em>.
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04519885025963711017noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8187108429320043507.post-82990783725330893722014-04-28T23:30:00.003-04:002014-05-23T10:44:45.183-04:00Legislation related to cucumbers<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<a href="http://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?uri=CELEX:31988R1677">Commission Regulation (EEC) No 1677/88 of 15 June 1988 laying down quality standards for cucumbers.</a> To the readers of this blog it may be interesting, I suppose, primarily from the philological point of view. As fits a EU document, over the 26 years since the quality standards for cucumbers have been laid down, they have been translated into 20-plus national languages of the European Union, all the translations being available at the URL above. (The Irish Gaelic and Croatian are disappointing omissions; I suppose Croatian readers will have to make do with the Slovenian, Slovak, and Bulgarian translations).
<p>By comparing the translations, one can note to see the "Great Cucumber Divide", a line running from the North Sea to the Adriatic and dividing the continent in half. Almost everywhere in the Eastern, Northern, and Central Europe, the word for "cucumber" is a derivative of the Greek αγγούρια ("unripe"; all examples here and below are in plural, and in an oblique case); cf. German <em>Gurken</em>, Swedish <em>gurka</em> (similarly in other Germanic languages, except for English),
Czech <em>okurky</em>, Slovak <em>uhorky</em> (similarly elsewhere in West and East Slavic),
Latvian <em>gurķiem</em>, Finnish <em>kurkkujen</em>, etc.
<p>Admittedly there is a strange non-αγγούρια island in the Balkans, with the Bulgarian <em>краставици</em> and obviously related Romanian <em>castraveți</em>. (Outside of the EU directive, we also find the same word in Albanian (<em>kastravecë</em>), Maceodnian, and Serbian/Croatian). So in this case the Balkan Sprachbund has a common word, but it is not the same Greek word that's common throughout half the Europe!
<p>The south-western half of Europe is much less homogeneous. Spanish and Portuguese have <em>pepinos</em>, which comes, ultimately, from the Greek πέπων "melon" (as does the English <em>pumpkin</em>).
<p>The English <em>cucumber</em>, via the French <em>concombre</em> is <a href="http://www.cnrtl.fr/etymologie/concombre">said</a> to be derived from the Latin <em>cucumis</em>. In Italian, this word survived too, as <em>cocomero</em>, but there it is more likely to mean "watermelon" than "cucumber"; the apparently more standard Italisn word for "cucumber" preferred by the EU bureaucrats id <em>cetriolo</em>, which also happens to be a Greek loanword - with the original Greek meaning "citron"!
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04519885025963711017noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8187108429320043507.post-51412389150593663902014-04-28T02:04:00.000-04:002016-10-07T21:15:05.065-04:00The Salahor has arrived<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<p>
A classic of the Macedonian and Bulgarian poetry,
<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grigor_Parlichev">Grigor Prlichev's</a> <i>In the Year 1762</i> (<a href="https://mk.wikisource.org/wiki/%D0%90%D0%B2%D1%82%D0%BE%D1%80:%D0%93%D1%80%D0%B8%D0%B3%D0%BE%D1%80_%D0%9F%D1%80%D0%BB%D0%B8%D1%87%D0%B5%D0%B2/_%D0%92_%D1%85%D0%B8%D0%BB%D1%98%D0%B0%D0%B4%D0%B0_%D0%B8_%D1%81%D0%B5%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BC%D1%81%D1%82%D0%BE%D1%82%D0%B8%D0%BD_%D1%88%D0%B5%D0%B7%D0%B4%D0%B5%D1%81%D0%B5%D1%82_%D0%B8_%D0%B2%D1%82%D0%BE%D1%80%D0%BE_%D0%BB%D0%B5%D1%82%D0%BE">В 1762-ро лето</a>) tells the (fictionalized) story of the abolition of the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Archbishopric_of_Ohrid"> Archbishopric of Ohrid</a> (which, according to most sources, actually, happened in 1767). Written in 1872, the poen has practically become a folk song in Macedonia, at least judging by the number and variety of its renditions available on Youtube.
<p>
The language of the poem, although obviously archaized for the effect, is, generally, quite easy to understand based on the modern Macedonian plus some knowledge of Church Slavonic. There is, however, one unusual word in it. In the first sentence of the poem, "a <em>salaor</em> arrived to Ohrid from Constantinople" (В Охрида од Цариграда дошел Салаор). The <em>salaor</em> then stood in front of the <em>Patrik</em> of Orhid (literally, "Patriarch", but in the Macedonian context, the Archbishop of Orhid - the spiritual leader of the Balkan Slavs), and delivered to him the Sultan's order, dismissing the <em>Patrik</em> and abolishing his office.
<p>Now, who is a <em>salaor</em>? The word <em>salaor</em> (салаор) does not look like a typical Slavic word, so, considering the context, it can be a Turkish loanword. However, it does not appear in standard Bulgarian or Macedonian dictionaries or texts (other than Prlichev's poem). Now, one of characteristic features of Macedonian (in fact, one of its main differences from standard Bulgarian) is that Macedonian often drops the consonant <em>h</em> or, in intervocalic position, <em>v</em>, where it appears in Bulgarian. So one also needs to check <em>salahor</em> (салахор) and <em>salavor</em> (салавор) - which, however, don't appear in Bulgarian or Macedonian (or even Turkish) dictionaries or texts either. It does appear as a surname, however - Salahor in Canada and the US, Salavor in Ukraine... and Salahor is apparently attested as a Romanian word. But what does (did) it mean in Bulgarian?
<p>The <A href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bulgarian_etymological_dictionary">Bulgarian etymological dictionary</a> to the rescue! (Macedonian, from the Bulgarian scholar's point of view - rarely shared by anyone outside of Bulgaria - is merely a dialect of Bulgarian, so any Bulgarian dictionary striving to comprehensively cover dialect words should include most of Macedonian words as well). The BER volumes have been appearing at the average rate of two per decade since 1971; presently, its authors have reached letter T (volume 7, 2010). And yes, volume 6 (published 2002) has a detailed article (page 443) on <em>salahor</em> (салахор), with spelling varieties <em>salaor</em> and <em>salavor</em>. This, indeed, is an obsolete word; its main meaning being given as "people driven ''en masse'' to do unpaid labor" (хора, карани вкупом на безплатна работа), i.e. <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corv%C3%A9e">corvée</a> workers. Additional meanings attested in certain dialect are "laborers" (трудоваци) and "a wanderer" (скитник). The indicated etymology, however, indicates a rather different original meaning: Turkish <em>salahor</em>, from Turkish Turkish <i>silâhşor</i>, "an armed fighter; a musketeer", which itself is a loanword from Persian (<i>selāḥšūr</i>, which in its turn is constructed from Arabic roots.
<p>According to the same dictionary, the same Turkish word, besides Bulgarian, entered other Balkan languages as well. Indeed, a <a href="http://ro-en.gsp.ro/index.php?x=salahor">Romanian dictionary</a> explains <em>salahór</em> as an "unskilled day laborer, esp. on road or building construction projects", or (historically) "a peasant who, instead of paying taxes, would have to work on fortress repair, road maintenance and other heavy work". In Serbo-Croatian, where the word could be variously spelled as <em>salahor</em>, <em>sarahor</em>, <em>saraor</em>, <em>seraor</em>, the purported meaning would be that of a soldier whose duties involve guarding a fortress (rather than, say, going on field campaigns); it also exists there as more authentically Turkish <em>silahšor</em>, and refers to a member of the palace guard of the Ottoman Sultan.
<p>A slight variation on the duties of a <em>Salahor</em> at the Sultan's court appears in a 19th century source, <a href="https://archive.org/details/travelsinalbani01brougoog"><em>Travels in Albania and Other Provinces of Turkey in 1809 & 1810</em></a> by Rt. Hon. Lord Broughton (<a href="https://archive.org/stream/travelsinalbani01brougoog#page/n256/mode/2up">page 239</a>), where "Squires of the Stable" (<em>Salahor</em>) are listed among the officials handling Sultan's horses.
<p>To conclude, after reading all these definitions, we still don't know whom exactly Prlichev had in mind when he was writing about a <em>salaor</em>. Simply a "traveler" (скитник) would not make to much sense to refer to a person who has brought the official Sultan's order, and presumably was a person in a position of some responsibility. But a "day laborer" would make even less sense. A fortress guard, or even a "squire of the stable", is not the same as an imperial courier either; perhaps there was another shift in meaning somewhere... We do, however, now have a better idea of where and how the surname Salahor (or Salavor / Salaor) originated.
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04519885025963711017noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8187108429320043507.post-72825117962418863742014-04-22T23:01:00.000-04:002014-04-22T23:01:41.727-04:00<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<br />
After a few really warm days...<br />
<br />
* First bamboo shoots seen today. The old bamboo canes are apparently all dead after the last super-cold winter, but we'll have new ones...<br />
* Volunteer tomato seedling sprout in the beds where tomatoes were grown last year. (We treat them as useless, since we'll have much bigger tomato seedlings grown indoor. In Indiana, you <i>can</i> let volunteer tomato seedling grow into a real plant, and it usually <i>will</i> bring fruit, but it will do so a month or two later than transplanted seedlings)<br />
* New mint stems and leaves appeared above the ground. I was wondering if mint had been fully killed by the cold winter, but no, it has not.</div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04519885025963711017noreply@blogger.com0Bloomington, IN, USA39.165325 -86.52638569999999239.066844 -86.68774719999999 39.263806 -86.3650242tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8187108429320043507.post-80255030277896802852014-04-05T00:17:00.002-04:002014-04-05T00:19:26.748-04:00If you read Russian, you'll read Macedonian in no time!<em>(This is my review of the <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Makedonsko-russkij-slovar-Usikova-R-P/dp/5170193262">Makedonsko russkij slovar</a> by R.P. Usikova, Z.K. Shanova, M.A. Povarnitsina, E.V.Verizhnikova [Moscow, 2003] on amazon.com)
</em>
<p>
Modern Macedonian is a curious little language: it is a literary standard created in the 20th century for a group of South Slavic dialects spoken by people whom Bulgarian officials call "Macedonian Bulgarians", and Serb politician used to call "Southern Serbs". The actual language is a lot like Bulgarian, but there are a lot of differences in spelling between the standard written forms of the two languages (e.g., Macedonian often has a <em>v</em> or an <em>f</em>, or nothing at all where Bulgarian has an <em>h</em>), as well as some specifically Macedonian words, so that trying to look up Macedonian words in a Bulgarian dictionary would not be practical for most people. It is also nice to have a concise "cheat sheet" for Macedonian grammar, explaining the conjugation of verbs, the forms of pronouns (which, too, are often different from Bulgarian), etc.
<p>
There are good Macedonian dictionaries on the market, such as the weighty <em>English-Macedonian, Macedonian-English Standard Dictionary</em> (ISBN 9989809356), which is more complete than Usikova's volume, but also is a lot heavier; there is also a
<a href="http://www.makedonski.info/">very good online dictionary</a>. There are textbooks and grammars targeted to the English-speaking readers as well, such as a good academic grammar by Olga Mišeska Tomić (ISBN 089357385X). The fact is though, if you already grasp Russian grammar and have a good Russian vocabulary, you don't need to read the 500 pages of Tomić (or a similarly sized book on Macedonian grammar, in Russian, authored by Usikova herself). The 40-page grammar reference in the back of Usikova's dictionary, with handy conjugation tables etc, together with the dictionary itself, would let you read pretty much anything published in the Republic of Macedonia fairly easily. In my experience using this dictionary with a couple of Macedonian books or articles, I'd run into a stumbling block maybe once in 5-10 pages, and then a reference to a bigger (online) dictionary (if I can't guess the meaning of a word) or to Tomić book (if the grammar is particularly tricky) would often be helpful. And a major advantage of Usikova's book is that, while certainly not pocket-sized, it is still small enough to be fairly convenient for travel use.
<p>
Obviously, the book is written primarily for native Russian speakers, but anyone who's achieved a decent reading proficiency in Russian and now wants to "diversify" to another Slavic language can make a good use of it as well.
<p>
From a user's point of view, one certainly can slightly expand the vocabulary contained in this dictionary. Among possible candidates for additions I can list, for example, some words frequently used by
<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Krste_Misirkov">Krste Misirkov</a> in his famous "Za Makedonskite Raboti" (pretty much the first book ever written in modern Macedonian), such as <em>arno</em> ('good'), as well as some recent Serbian loanwords (?), such as <em>točak</em> (originally 'wheel', but seems to usually mean 'bicycle' in Macedonian). But, overall, the dictionary is quite adequate.
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04519885025963711017noreply@blogger.com0